Professional Journalism at the NY Times and CNN

Or maybe not. The Left and the Media, but I repeat myself, love to tell us how accurate the legacy media are. They should be trusted; others should be censored. The legacy media have layers of editorial oversight, they are known for non-biased application of standards, and other stuff. In a pig's eye. Red State brings us all the details.

Last Friday, the "professional journalists" at the NY Times demonstrated their complete lack up understanding of anything to do with geopolitics. Gray Lady Faceplant: NY Times Apparently Doesn't Even Know What NATO Is in Pathetic Gaslighting Effort

The NY Times identified NATO as the North American Treaty Organization. It would be laughable it they weren't trying to lecture all of us about geopolitics and our roll in NATO.

NATO, of course, does not include the word “America” — it’s the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and it was created in 1947 with Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States being the founding members.

OK. So they hired a bunch of brain-dead theater kids, who weren't good enough to actually land on Broadway, and decided to go to journalism school, because the math requirements were nil. A simple web search for "NATO" would have turned up the correct info. (It is literally in the 1st line in the Wikipedia article.) But journalists are nothing if not sure of themselves.

“Fact checks? We ain’t got no Fact checks! We don’t need no Fact checks! I don’t have to show you any stinking Fact checks!” (With apologies to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre)

If you can't get the simple facts right, why should I trust you about complex issues? If you are completely unaware of what NATO is, and you would need to be mostly clueless for this error, why should I listen to you when, through you editorial board, you try to tell me what to think about the issues of the day?

So after they made this error they tried to downplay it a s simply typo. It wasn't a simple typo. After That Embarrassing NY Times ‘NATO’ Headline the Press Opposes Applying Their Own Standards

After the typo thing didn't fly they kept at it. It wasn't that big a deal. Or something.

Anytime right-of-center news outlets have an error of this fashion, they become excoriated by those in the press gaggle. Accusations of a lack of editorial oversight and lax journalism are made, while at the same time touting their own fact-checking filters. At the Times, they have long established their own deeply strenuous editing process, declaring how this elevates their quality above all others.

They even explain those layers of oversight.

Somehow, when the most vaunted of news sources screws up to a level well beyond the errors leading to others getting scorched, it is excused away. And this headline debacle was hardly an isolated instance from the Times. Just a week prior, the paper had to issue multiple corrections in its report on recent proposals made by Undersecretary of State Jacon Helberg.

If it weren't for double standards, they'd have no standards at all.

Not to be out done by the NY Times, CNN, “The Most Trusted Name in News,” decided to do a similar face plant. Journalism Fail 101: Major Outlet Reports on Hollywood Star's Death, His Response Is Golden

Now CNN, which still occasionally uses its tagline, “The Most Trusted Name in News,” got in on the game Wednesday with its fond remembrance of the star of the Hollywood blockbuster Back to the Future movies. “Remembering the life of actor Michael J. Fox,” they played across the screen.

One wee bit of a problem here, though.

Michael J. Fox is very much alive.

Fox got into the fray by complaining to Variety. Michael J. Fox Speaks Out After CNN Sparks Death Scare: ‘How Do You React When You Turn on the TV and CNN Is Reporting Your Death?’

“How do you react when you turn on the TV and CNN is reporting your death?” Fox asked his followers. “Do you…A) switch to MNSBC, or whatever they are calling themselves these days, (B) Pour scolding hot water on your lap, if it hurts your fine, (C) Call your wife, hopefully she’s concerned but reassuring, (D) Relax, they do this once every year, (E) Ask yourself wtf ? I thought the world was ending, but apparently it’s just me and I’m ok. Love, Mike.”

Media. You only think you hate them enough.